Staff and Alumni

Adam Voight, Ph.D, Director (email)

Adam Voight is Director of the Center for Urban Education. He is an associate professor in the School of Education and Counseling at CSU. He received his Ph.D. in community psychology from Peabody College of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Voight works in partnership with schools, communities, and youth using research to create environments more conducive to the learning and well-being of young people, particularly those marginalized by structural forces like poverty and racism. In collaboration with these stakeholders, he provides expertise in community-engaged research, program evaluation, youth participatory action research (YPAR), and other applied research methodologies to understand how young people's settings help and hinder their development. Through technical assistance, training, and organizing, Dr. Voight helps partners develop the capacity to create and advocate for programs, policies, and practices that promote learning, equity, and well-being. His work has been supported by the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Spencer Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, and Hewlett Foundation. He has published his work in leading peer-reviewed education and psychology journals such as Educational Researcher, the American Journal of Community Psychology, and Developmental Psychology and his work has been featured in national and state media outlets like Education Week, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Cincinnati Enquirer. He was formerly a high school social studies teacher and counselor. In the 2023-24 academic year, Dr. Voight was one of two CSU faculty awarded the Distinguished Faculty Award for Research.

 

Rosalinda Godinez, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Fellow (email)

Rosalinda Godinez is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Urban Education. She received her Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and a bachelor's degree in Sociology from Washington State University. Rosalinda's research interweaves critical, interdisciplinary, and Chicana/Latina feminist perspectives to address the intersections of education, gendered labor, and immigration. As an education ethnographer, she is committed to establishing collaborative and action-based partnerships that document and honor people's everyday life and education practices of community, movement, and imagination. Her research has focused on Latinx families' education both in California and Washington, working with families in the research process to document their knowledge and create educational materials from their experiences. In 2021, Dr. Godinez was awarded a National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship. 

 

Xiaona Jin, Project Coordinator (email)

Xiaona Jin is a project coordinator at the Center for Urban Education. She earned her Master of Arts in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Yangzhou University in China and is a fifth-year student the Urban Education doctoral program at Cleveland State University. Ms. Jin's research interests include school climate, Chinese language teaching and learning, online teaching and learning. She has worked in the education field in both China and the U.S. as a college Chinese instructor, international culture exchange program manager, and pre-K Chinese teacher. In 2024, Xiaona Jin was awarded a Graduate Student Research Award from Cleveland State University Office of Research.

 

Marissa Stock, Research Assistant (email)

Marissa Stock is a research assistant at the Center for Urban Education. She is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Urban Education program at Cleveland State University specializing in Adult, Continuing, and Higher Education. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from John Carroll University and an Master of Education in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from CSU. Marissa has experience working with diverse, under-served populations and is passionate about serving others. Marissa previously taught English as a second language to adult refugees and immigrants at beginner-to-advanced levels. She also served as an AmeriCorps volunteer at Migration and Refugee Services. Her research interests focus on the factors that lead to retention and attrition of LGBTQ+ students in higher education.

 

Katelyne Griffin-Todd, Research Assistant (email)

Katelyne Griffin-Todd is a research assistant at the Center for Urban Education. She is a third-year doctoral student in the Urban Education program at Cleveland State University specializing in counseling psychology. She earned her Bachelor of Science from Florida State University in psychology and her Master of Science in psychology from the University of North Florida. Her research interests are centered on trauma and its risk and protective factors. Her work is motivated by Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory.  

 

Amirhassan Javadi, Research Assistant (email)

Amirhassan (Amir) Javadi is a research assistant at the Center for Urban Education. He moved from Iran to the U.S. to enter the Urban Education doctoral program at Cleveland State University, where he is a third-year student specializing in counseling psychology. Amir earned a Master's degree at the University of Tehran in clinical psychology, and he has worked as a psychotherapist in a private practice clinic. His Master's thesis concerned psychodynamic group therapy. His research interests include critical consciousness, multicultural counseling, and the processes and outcomes of psychotherapy. In his work, Amir considers the lived experience of people from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds in different settings (e.g., counseling sessions, school, and university) and the various ways that exist for each individual to gain balance.  

  

Alumni

The Center for Urban Education is proud to have been a training site for the following scholars:

• Elizabeth Benninger, Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, Baldwin Wallace University
• Laura Fogarty, Psychologist, Private Practice
• Regina Giraldo-Garcìa, Assistant Professor of Educational Studies, Ball State University
• Alexandrea Golden, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Memphis
• Sinéad O'Neill, Doctoral Student in School Psychology, University of Wisconsin--Madison
• Steven Sanders, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Oregon State University